Facebook Is Friend to Jobless and Small Business, Says Company COO

COO Sandberg Says 'Facebook Economy' Has Created 250,000 Jobs

"Privacy is one of the most important things we do, and it's a very firm commitment we have to all of our users. We took his ad, and we showed it to all of those women. But we never gave a single bit of information on any of those women to Chris Meyer. We just show them something they're interested in," said Sandberg.

Sandberg said Facebook, by helping businesses grow, does something the economy has struggled to do: create jobs "in the ecosystem around us," she said.

Citing third-party studies with which the company has collaborated, Sandberg said "the Facebook economy" -- the ripple effect of the company's success that has spawned developers, programmers, and others -- had created "about 250,000 jobs."

As for the overall economy, Sandberg said we need to restore confidence: "consumer confidence to spend money, business confidence to hire."

How? First, a regulatory environment that encourages business and creates "the kind of entrepreneurs America has created: the Sam Waltons and Mark Zuckerbergs and Steve Jobs and Oprah Winfreys," she said.

Second, greatly improved education: "Our education system used to be one of the world's best, or the world's best. It is so far from that. We are failing our children, and we're failing the next generation. And over the long run, our competitiveness will be completely tied to how well we educate our children."

Sandberg has become a prominent role model for women in business, partly as a result of several of her speeches going viral.

"The data shows that women feel less self-confident than men. At every stage. And they're also less ambitious," she said.

Today her wish and advice for women is the same as when she was at Treasury, when, as reported in the New Yorker, she would invite junior staffmembers, many of them women, to join the senior officials at the main conference table.

"Women should sit at the table. Don't sit in the back of the room... Really be there, leaning forward in your career," she said.